Daily Prayer

Saturday, 31 March 2007

Paul writes – As I drove to work recently, I was reflecting on what it might mean for us to allow “scripture to read us,” in contrast to the typical practice in which we read scripture. This follows up a comment I made in my review of Maggi Dawn’s essay, Whose Text is it Anyway? Limit and Freedom in Interpretation.

Two thoughts:

·Ironically I wonder if this does in fact have to do with the way(s) in which do read scripture. I wonder if practices like lectio divina, and Ignatian reading allow us to be read by scripture?

·Secondly, I note the importance in both practices of slow reading and questions. In terms of questions, I’m thinking of the kind that a good spiritual director might encourage us to either ask of ourselves, or to respond too, e.g. “what are you most afraid of as you sit with this text?”“What do you think is the central issue or invitation for you?” “If you looked at your life in the light of the text, if you looked at your life from the perspective of Jesus what might you see?” “What other questions does this text ask you?”

Both practices (imaginative reading and questions) invite us to ask questions as a part of the practice of a deep listening to Scripture. These questions are the kinds of questions that God through the text might want to ask us; these are the kinds of questions that invite us to respond in a variety of ways, including praxis journaling etc.

To the degree that we are willing to both listen for questions and ask questions I believe we open ourselves to allowing Scripture to read us.

Common Protestant devotional practices such as reading a passage / reflection each morning (i.e. the use of daily reading notes) or, effectively, speed-reading the whole bible in a year aren’t helpful if we want Scripture to read us.

Being read by scripture is, it seems to me, about my willingness to allow myself to be changed. Our deepest potential, identity and capacity is realised when we allow scripture to ‘read us’ by allowing scripture to invite is to change and to become more, in Jesus Christ, than we currently are. Being read by scripture demands of us a willingness to pay attention both to the biblical text and our own lives, too listen to both, as the Spirit is active. It is about being fully present to God in the moments and ways that God speaks to us through the Word that became flesh.

Friday, 30 March 2007

Paul writes – As a process of listening, debate and discernment continues within the Anglican Church – globally and in here in New Zealand – I’m mindful of observations provided by Gareth Moore O.P. (d. Dec. 2002, aged 54). Moore, in approximately 2003, writes:

“…All serious theological positions take time and debate in order to be properly assessed and elaborated. The current polarized reactions do not enable this debate to take place.

Second, those who are developing their own views are doing so in an atmosphere where these views too cannot be properly debated. The Church at large cannot profit from the new insights they claim to offer, and they cannot benefit from a reasoned criticism emanating from other currents in church thinking. While the church remains divided into camps, while each side sees the other as at best mouthing slogans and at worst betraying its Christian vocation, there will be no debate, only a dialogue of the deaf.

Third, the church was not founded to be a place of polarization, of mutual hostility and suspicion or of fear. It is founded to be a place where truth is spoken [debated and discerned] in love. St. Paul asks us all to be of one mind. We are not all to pretend to be of one mind when we are not.

Among human beings, unanimity is difficult to achieve. If it is possible at all, it can only be by a long process which demands charity of us all: the humility to listen carefully to others and always to seek the best in what they say, to speak without aggression, respecting the intelligence and integrity of those from whom we differ…”

Beyond Anglicanism, Moore’s statement resonates at a number of levels including how we get on relationally…how we get on when we work together…how we honor difference. How we love!

Thursday, 29 March 2007

Paul writes – I’m always on the lookout for little “gems” like the following one. It offers needful encouragement for the kind of commitment that relationships of every kind ask of us daily, whether they be marriages, friendships, how we work with work colleagues etc. It also strikes me as somewhat subversive in a world that discourages commitments and interdependency… that discourages “working through” and resolving the things that divide us.

“…A short-lived fascination with another person may be exciting—I think we've all seen people aglow, in the state of being 'in love with love'—but such an attraction is not sustainable over the long run. Paradoxically, human love is sanctified not in the height of attraction and enthusiasm but in the everyday struggles of living with another person. It is not in romance but in routine that the possibilities for transformation are made manifest. And that requires commitment…" Kathleen Norris

The hard yards start beyond the “short-lived fascination” or the so-called courtship/honeymoon stage. The "good news" is that it is these "hard yards" that have the potential to enlarge and deepen us as individuals and as persons in relationship. Thanks Simon. You can read some more quotes here on Simon Carey-Holt’s blog.

Wednesday, 28 March 2007

Paul writes - Brother Maynard has come up with the interesting suggestion of circulating a list of under-rated, under-appreciated, or under-valued emerging/missional blogs to help promote them in the wider blogosphere. I'm not entirely convinced, but am willing to give it a go. Below is the list I picked up from Matt Stone.

To participate, copy this list into a new post on your own blog, and add the names you have to the bottom of the list, and encourage others to do the same. They should be people with under 150 links so we can truly scew the Technorati rankings. When you’ve done that, leave a comment at Brother Maynard’s blog so he can keep track of who ends up participating.

Tuesday, 27 March 2007

Paul writes – Today’s post offers my review of a recently published essay by Maggi Dawn. The essay is Whose Text is it Anyway? Limit and Freedom in Interpretation. It can be found in the book: An Acceptable Sacrifice? Homosexuality and the Church. Edited by Duncan Dormor and Jeremy Morris, and published in 2007 by SPCK, London.

“Maggi Dawn, Chaplain to Robinson College, Cambridge University is included within a mix of nine writers seeking to “explore a position [regarding “homosexuality and the Church”] that is attentive to the authority of scripture, alert to the unity of the Church, and sensitive to the integrity and experience of practicing gay Christians.” They write, as Emeritus Archbishop Desmond Tutu notes in his foreword, for those who want to “… ‘think things through’…” He continues, “Its authors sincerely believe that that a more accepting approach to gay Christians is compatible with the heart of the Christian faith.” “Yet,” he adds, “they are scrupulous in their attempt to promote a deeper and more open conversation about the issue with those who disagree.” “Such a conversation,” Tutu suggests, “is long overdue” within Anglicanism, whose “very future depends upon it taking place.”…”

Monday, 26 March 2007

“Walter Brueggemann says that in these days grief will be our state, and that we must embrace it, because an unwillingness to grieve what we are losing will prevent us from embracing God’s surprising newness.” Len Hjalmarson.

Paul comments – that Len’s statement emerges out of his interaction with Walter Brueggemann, particularly his book The Prophetic Imaginationin which Brueggemann writes:

"…mourning is a precondition…It is…the only door and route to joy [and life]. Seen in that context, Jesus' saying about weeping and laughing is not just a neat aphorism but a summary of the entire theology of the cross. Only that kind of anguished disengagement permits fruitful yearning, and only the public embrace of deathliness permits newness to come. We are at the edge of knowing this in our personal lives, for we understand a bit of the processes of grieving. But we have yet to learn and apply it to the reality of society [or churches]."[p.118 in the revised and updated 2nd edition].

Beyond this quote serving to express something of the hopeful place I’m in following the journey of 2006, it interests me to the degree that I have long wondered about the significance of dying as paradoxically a way of life for Western expressions of Christianity (mainline churches) that are significantly graying. I wonder what ecclesiological shapes and content a theology of grief and resurrection might offer or invite. I wonder about the ecclesiological possibilities that experiences of loss (“it isn’t like it used to be…” or “I remember when…”) within these aging congregations might offer – opportunities to creatively and imaginatively discover what Len describes as “God’s surprising newness.”

I wonder about the significance of engaging with Scripture while re-telling the past, as a way of both expressing grief while at the same time re-imagining a hopeful future and permissioning experimentation.

I wonder about the ways that dying becomes paradoxically, an invitation to life. Do churches die? And if so, I wonder how it might be that a dying church might come to a place where it sees itself as having a choice: to either die as a result of its resistance to change, or to die in order to live. Finally I wonder about the change process necessary for a church facing death, but choosing to die in order to live

Saturday, 24 March 2007

Paul writes – The May issue of the US published National Catholic has an interesting article on spiritual direction. Downloadable as a PDF from here.

Excerpts

"It's a growing ministry because churches are often not able to answer the hunger in their congregations [nor I would argue the wider societal hunger for meaning etc – Paul]. Formerly, homilies and missions, confessions and the presence of a pastor were able to fulfill spiritual needs of parishioners. Now, many parishes are combined and there are fewer personnel”

“They are here [at spiritual direction] for a felt sense of God”

"People [in spiritual direction] tend to appropriate their faith on a more adult level," said Dr Janet K. Ruffing, a Mercy Sister who directs Fordham University's graduate program in spirituality and spiritual direction. "They become more individuated, more fully themselves, more available for God to work through them as loving, caring people in the world."

Friday, 23 March 2007

Paul writes – A reasonably regular presence in my journey (and therefore this blog) has been UK theologian James Alison. He names well, aspects of my own experience of learning theology – I quote him:

Beginning to learn theology “…was for me… an experience of being pulled out of my own narrow sacred world and discovering a huge, peaceful discipline that preceded me and that had extraordinary depths, contours, melodies and spaciousness. I was being pulled into swimming around in it.

This meant beginning to see how those teachers who it had been so easy for the clever beginner to despise were doing a magnificent job of holding open a great canopy of learning within which I could indeed find things that I didn't control, things that nourished me, things that would help me build something, but also things that I didn't find so helpful and could avoid, ways of talking and thinking which tired the soul rather than giving it zest.

"…. I moved from being someone who had an interest in theology to someone who loved theology and had found himself caught in a bigger, more open world than he could imagine. One where theology was no longer simply a discipline about which one should know for other purposes (and there may be people for whom that is exactly what it should be!) but a gift and a promise of being, and of finding myself on the inside of an act of communication from elsewhere.”

James Alison – slightly adapted from his Taking the Plunge: Immersed in Theology in the February 20th, 2007 issue of Christianity Century.

Thursday, 22 March 2007

Paul notes – “The enneagram is a remarkably accurate map of our inner geography. It is distinguished from much of modern psychology in that it illustrates our inner motivations and our behaviour only secondarily. The enneagram map depicts what model of the universe each of nine different kinds of people have. This map, like all maps, describes some things and leaves out others. “The enneagram will tell… us more, not only about ourselves, but very specifically what troubles us about ourselves…”

“… It portrays our biggest problem in life and our greatest gift -- and remarkably they are the same.

The fundamental premise of the enneagram is that each of us has one dominant (not exclusive) energy that drives us in everything we do. This dominant energy is our greatest gift so we use it too much and it becomes our chief fault - or sin. This energy, like a prevailing wind that bends a tree permanently, sculpts our interior geography and shapes our entire life.”

For a great many people, the enneagram provides an interesting insight into the inner realities of their lives, and the ways in which that inwardness works its way out outwardly. Spiritual directors and directees often find it a very useful tool as well. Personally I’ve benefited a lot from the insights that the enneagram has provided me. It provides good insights into the dymanics and besetting 'sins' of relationships too.

Thomson notes the relationship between the enneagram and the cardinal sins or so-called “seven deadly sins.”Also insightful is his (sadly only) introductory comments on the “enneagram styles” [I might want to use the descriptor – “powers”] of corporate entities, e.g. nations (he talks about the US), institutions etc. He describes the book, The Purpose Driven Life as “an awful book” and is all focused on how to be a good “3”, which a large number of us aren’t.

The National Catholic Reporter has an interview with Clarence Thomson. It is an interview that is divided into three parts:

1.What the Enneagram is and why it works.

2.Widening your focus.

3.The Enneagram fits into traditional Catholic theology.

You can download it (Mp3) here. You can complete an online enneagram exercise here. It should give you a reasonable indication, and certainly some useful insights to reflect on. Although, I’ve now had to modify my style. I had thought I was a “2” but in doing Thomson’s online version four times I came out three times as the a different style (three times the same, but different from a 2) and once as a “4”. As many of you will appreciate, however, we’re often a composite, but one dominant style.

Wednesday, 21 March 2007

Paul writes – I’ve been reflecting on a couple of quotes recently. The first is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer (one of his ‘prison letters’), and the second is from Nicholas Lash. Both were situated in a larger reflection on The Church: Community of Suffering and Hope:

“…Later I discovered and I am still discovering up to this very moment that it is only by living completely in this world that one learns to believe. One must abandon every attempt to make something of oneself…This is what I mean by worldliness [i.e. living completely in this world] – taking life in one’s stride, with all its duty and problems, its successes and failures, its experiences and helplessness. It is in such a life that we throw ourselves utterly into the arms of God and participate in his sufferings in the world and watch with Christ in Gethsemane…”

“…I see no rational grounds for optimism concerning the future of mankind. But there does exist, with whatever fragility and ambivalence, a form of hope, focused in the death of one man interpreted as resurrection, for which the struggle for humanity is deemed to be worthwhile because not just one man’s death but the entire wilderness of the world’s Gethsemane is trusted to be the expression of that mystery whose truth with be all [people’s] freedom…”

I continue to reflect more and more not about a rational defence of gospel; a rational, propositional defence of faith (it seems to me to be becoming increasingly meaningless in our contemporary post-Christendom context), but instead, to reflect on the importance of a quietly distinctive, humble and alternative embodied expression of “good news”.This is what gospel looks like, feels like, tastes like, sounds like –“taste and see,” “watch and listen,” “see how they love one another…” etc.